The Emperor had two throne rooms within his fortress abode on Coruscant, the Imperial Palace. One throne room was designed for public matters; it was a sunken auditorium, similar to a huge crater dug into bedrock. In the audience decks, there were flat stone benches arranged in long arcs, where visitors could come to hear pronouncements from the Emperor himself. The audience could hear everything the Emperor said and the Emperor was likewise able to hear everything said to him from the audience decks. At the pinnacle of the throne room was an angled, prismatic skylight, which poured rays of light onto the Emperor in his seat. At the bottom, around the tower of the throne, six of the Emperor's Royal Guards stood at attention. The second throne room was Palpatine's private chamber in the highest tower of the palace. This was his favorite, and most significant throne room. It was slightly elevated on a platform with a small staircase above the floor. The circular window in front of the throne, lined with the usual web-like framework, gave the Emperor a view of all of Coruscant. When staying in this primary chamber, Palpatine was usually flanked by at least two to four Royal Guards. It was here where Palpatine promoted his most trusted military commander, Thrawn, to Grand Admiral.

Palpatine's first throne room was in an upper level of the EmPal SuRecon, built to resemble the Chancellor's holding office. A wide but short burnished staircase bisected the room into two levels, with the upper level replete with long permaplas windows. A pair of the Emperor's Royal Guards were to stand at attention at the staircase's foot. Behind the Guard stations was a table for Palpatine to meet with his Imperial Advisors, and behind that table stood his large mechanized throne, integrated with the building's communications and computer systems.

The Emperor's throne room on the first Death Star was located in an observation dome at the top of a tower placed directly next to the station's superlaser. The platform served as Palpatine's watchtower in order to view the laser's firing demonstrations. The Emperor's chamber could only be reached through a massive circular doorway with a large metal beam that rotated to unlock the door. In the main chamber, the Emperor's throne was elevated above the floor by a short staircase and flanked by his Royal Guards and Imperial Senate Guards. There were numerous control consoles surrounding Palpatine's throne, and the room was decorated with large statues made of black stone.

Palpatine established this chamber during the early stages of the first Death Star's construction, so that he may keep a close eye on its workers and ensure its completion was brought to effective fruition. During the Battle on Death Star I, Galen Marek came to the Death Star to rescue the leaders of the newly formed Rebel Alliance, Rahm Kota, Bail Organa, Garm Bel Iblis, and Mon Mothma. Palpatine brought the Alliance leaders here in order to execute them personally; he would interrogate and torture them to the point of death, retaliating for their "betrayal" and learning the names of their allies. He also intended to show their painful deaths to the rest of the galaxy as demonstration and to crush the resolve of further dissent.

After fighting his way through the station, defeating one of the Emperor's Shadow Guard and his group of Royal Guards protecting the doorway, and severely injuring Darth Vader in a duel in the tower's carbon-freezing chamber, Galen Marek made it into the chamber and fought Darth Sidious. Sidious and Marek battled with their lightsabers and the Force. Marek won the battle, rescuing the Senators. Just as Juno Eclipse arrived in the Rogue Shadow, Palpatine sprung back to life and attacked Kota with Force lightning. Galen deflected the blast and allowed the rebels to escape by releasing his spirit to the Force. The resulting explosion all but destroyed the tower, leaving Vader and Palpatine as the only ones left standing.

Following the skirmish, Palpatine abandoned the throne room, leaving the responsibility of monitoring the Death Star solely to Darth Vader. The Emperor never visited the station again before its destruction.

The Emperor's throne room on the second Death Star was on the top of a 100-story tower located on the north pole of the superweapon. It was his command center that had access to all systems on the station. It was also protected by several turbolaser turrets and more shielded than any other part of the station. The common circular viewport lined with the web-like framework provided an amazing view for Palpatine, while armrest controls kept him in touch with his countless minions. Barracks for a legion of Royal Guards and various living quarters for his advisors were included at the tower's foot.

Death Star II tower cutaway.

All entrances to the throne room were lined with security scanners and traps to prevent intruders from coming in, in addition to being guarded by Sidious' loyal Royal Guards. There was also a docking rig for his personalshuttle to dock, chambers for receiving guests that bore resemblance to his quarters on Coruscant, a sleep chamber that monitored his health, and a massive holographic map of the galaxy which was also used to find out which planets or star systems are to be subjugated and/or punished.

The throne room itself was in many ways similar to his throne room in the EmPal SuRecon Center. The tower was intentionally constructed to resemble the central spire on the Jedi Temple. However, while the Jedi Temple spire had four smaller supporting towers, this tower had none, serving as a visual metaphor stating that the Sith stand alone. It would become the site of his first death in 4 ABY.

After the Battle of Endor, the throne room was apparently placed in a state of formal mourning; the black drape placed over the throne itself was taken by Mara Jade and used by her as a cloak on her departure from Coruscant. The unavailability of the primary throne room may explain why Sate Pestage tended to use a throne room in the Imperial Sanctum instead, during his brief reign as "Interim Emperor." This was a far more sparse environment than the more famous throne room, with the throne itself jettied out on a long, blade-like balcony in a vast empty space. The only entrance lay at the far end of the balcony, which Pestage quickly arranged to be guarded by a pair of Royal Guards.

After Pestage's overthrow, the Tribunal governed from the chamber where the Ruling Council had once sat. Subsequently, Director of IntelligenceYsanne Isard used her powers as head of the security apparatus to remove all rivals and seize control of the entire administration, making herself de facto Empress, but she eschewed the formal trappings of power, and her existing office took over the functions of the throne room as a control center and high-level audience chamber. Similarly, Grand Admiral Thrawn would use the secondary command room aboard the Star DestroyerChimaera.

The throne room within Palpatine's citadel on Byss appeared to be a semi-circular room with rounded walls and ceiling, with a massive area of the rounded wall occupied by a large circular display-screen, which allowed the throne room to function as a military command center. The throne, also rounded, was placed in front of the screen. Palpatine used this throne room after his resurrection as a clone in the aftermath of the Battle of Endor. During the commencement of Operation Shadowhand, he would routinely receive visual transmissions from the various battles on the display screen.

It was here that he met with Luke Skywalker after forcibly transporting him to Byss with a Force storm and successfully turned the Jedi to the dark side.

Following the Galactic Empire's conquest of Coruscant at the end of the Sith–Imperial War, a throne room was quickly prepared for Emperor Roan Fel. This was a broad chamber, with squat, heavy pillars along either flank, but massive skylights in the roof and vast windows in the end walls opened the space up to the sky and cityscape.

In contrast to earlier throne rooms, the dais was the only large area of open flooring in this space, with steps leading down from the here and from the side walls to a sunken floor in the center of the room, which seems to have been taken up by an ornamental pool. Given that this throne room was functional within a few days of the Imperial conquest of the Jedi Temple, it may have been an existing structure taken over by the conquerors, and although it satisfied the basic architectural requirements of an Imperial throne room, the only detail to define it as such was the throne itself, which rested on repulsorlifts and was not even physically fixed in place.